he may have thought
that he was acting with extreme generosity, while, in the opinion of all
impartial men, he will only be considered as having fulfilled a natural
obligation, seeing that, in justice, if not in strict law, you must
be considered as the heir of your mother, and I as your legal
administrator. Instead, therefore, of considering myself as loaded
with obligations to Sir Edward on this account, I think I had reason
to complain that these remittances were only doled out to me at the
pleasure of Mr. Ratcliffe, who, moreover, exacted from me mortgages
over my paternal estate of Ellieslaw for any sums which I required as an
extra advance; and thus may be said to have insinuated himself into the
absolute management and control of my property. Or, if all this seeming
friendship was employed by Sir Edward for the purpose of obtaining a
complete command of my affairs, and acquiring the power of ruining me
at his pleasure, I feel myself, I must repeat, still less bound by the
alleged obligation.
"About the autumn of last year, as I understand, either his own crazed
imagination, or the accomplishment of some such scheme as I have hinted,
brought him down to this country. His alleged motive, it seems, was a
desire of seeing a monument which he had directed to be raised in the
chapel over the tomb of your mother. Mr. Ratcliffe, who at this time
had done me the honour to make my house his own, had the complaisance to
introduce him secretly into the chapel. The consequence, as he informs
me, was a frenzy of several hours, during which he fled into the
neighbouring moors, in one of the wildest spots of which he chose, when
he was somewhat recovered, to fix his mansion, and set up for a sort of
country empiric, a character which, even in his best days, he was fond
of assuming. It is remarkable, that, instead of informing me of these
circumstances, that I might have had the relative of my late wife taken
such care of as his calamitous condition required, Mr. Ratcliffe seems
to have had
Notka biograficzna
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